Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

justice for dashjadoll: https://www.tiktok.com/@ytniyah/video/7338502576150875438

What's the backstory on this? I checked the Wikipedia page, but don't see it mentioned in the "Background and development" section (which is more of an essay beginning with her birth in Houston).

― let’s get intertwined (morrisp), Friday, March 29, 2024 12:51 PM (eight minutes ago)

i'm sorry i can't stop myself from saying this but... you do know how to use google right...

I do, many apologies for asking

"Jolene" was already bad-ass...

I read Parton say somewhere she wanted someone to do a Whitney Houston like take on Jolene

Didn't like Renaissance really but find this nicer and more intriguing. Maybe because, unlike house, I have only fleeting encounters with country music. Never enjoyed "Jolene" though. And I didn't get anything out of the occasional not-country songs (except "Ya Ya" - that's really good I think, even if I feel the obvious borrows may begin to irritate me).

I find it annoying Apple have spent decades refusing Beatles samples but they've seemingly let Beyonce sing over the entire original backing track of Blackbird. It's like when ABBA said yes to Madonna. Only the real important artists are good enough (or paying enough)? Idk

The Beytles

Never enjoyed "Jolene" though.

Did you think you could slide this sentence in and no one would notice?

"I Will Always Love You" on the other hand..

A straight cover of Blackbird by a black woman is an interesting response to the straight cover of Fast Car by a white man ruling the county charts last year.

Maybe if she'd covered a song by a male country artist from '80s. Like "Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc."

Well, Fast Car wasn't country either. It's like if a white dude in a cowboy hat can turn a black folksinger's song into a country hit by just singing and playing it the exact same way, why can't she do the same thing to macca's iconic folk song?

we'll see. I just can't see an R&B/Pop singer covering a Beatles song as a response to a Country artist covering an 80s Folk song.

Also: Beyonce doesn't have to respond to shit.

"Respond" wasn't the best word to use to make my point: this album is about deconstructing genre expectations, of race in country in particular as she's talked about leading up the the release. So if she's looking at Fast Car as the biggest song in country music as she's putting this album together, I would imagine that the fact that it was written by black female folk singer would play into her decision to take an iconic white male folksong, about black civil rights, no less and play it straight to see how country radio would react.

I like the album a lot, but the “Jolene” cover is a major misfire. The lyric change removes the almost supernatural sense of dread that makes the original so special.

I think what I'm getting stuck on is the fact that neither Beyonce nor the Beatles are Country artists, so why would a straight cover of a Beatles song, with no Country bells and whistles, be expected to do well on Country radio?

I dunno, why did Fast Car do so well last year? It sounds pretty similar to Blackbird to me.

It has drums for one things.

Also Electric guitar

i.e. Nashville session ninjas

Ok you got me. I don't listen to country radio and frequently talk out of my ass, but still, I'm fascinated by Beyonce's choices on this record & Blackbird & Jolene don't seem like necessarily bad choices to me.

I will listen some more but … on first pass this strikes me as, erm, well intentioned. A few plausible keepers but mostly kinda dull.

based on info that has leaked out from
some collaborators — and honestly based on what her collaborators have consistently said about her work process in the post-4 era — it seems like most if not all of this album finished like 3-5 years ago, i would caution against viewing any of the songs as responses to anything that happened in the last 1-2 years

black female pop artists having been releasing straight covers of Beatles songs for like 60 years, i have a hard time hearing B's "Blackbird" as some kind of boundary-smashing statement of intent. The version is good though, the underlying song is indestructible and her decision to play it straight works in her favor

otoh i agree that "Jolene" is embarrassing, it tops the list of songs that dont need to be badassified and the harder she tries the goofier she sounds

This version of Blackbird is straight up lifted from the Glee version which is kinda lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-cZ_ElJ1oA

My two cents from the hot press:
- Tends to be overloaded with crap (layers, ad libs), struggles to find its rhythm, compromises readability
- Bodyguard is a breath of fresh air
- Nobody needs a cover of Jolene and I'm already looking at the time

Covering Jolene feels like when Pat Boone did his heavy metal album and was like "What are the Heavy Metal songs? Crazy Train? Okay."

pat boone was ozzy's next door neighbor in the "the osbournes" era

I enjoyed this album but would be more tempted to listen to it all through again if they'd snipped a good twenty minutes from the second half

well intentioned. A few plausible keepers but mostly kinda dull.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Friday, March 29, 2024 12:39 PM

her entire musical output summed up.

(no shade, just a very fair assessment imo)

i think the second half is the stronger half ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wonder why the « I » is doubled on almost all the titles but not all…

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, March 29, 2024 2:38 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think it's only not doubled in people's names (linda martell, willie nelson, etc.). beyonce is calling this "act ii" in a series of albums that started with renaissance

it's everywhere the i is not next to another vowel

First Beyoncé album for which I have zero iinterest

based on info that has leaked out from
some collaborators — and honestly based on what her collaborators have consistently said about her work process in the post-4 era — it seems like most if not all of this album finished like 3-5 years ago, i would caution against viewing any of the songs as responses to anything that happened in the last 1-2 years

this is 100% correct and will be gleefully ignored by many

the tyranny of narrative

but I definitely associate this kind of "what does it all mean" ILM discussion with a "cultural moment" album that no one is particularly enthusiastic about, divining the artist's intentions substituting for talking about killer jawns

First Beyoncé album for which I have zero iinterest

this is basically how I feel about this - I will listen out of a sense of obligation around the ~cUlTuRaL cOnVeRsAtIoN~ but it's feeling like a chore before I get to it. Beyonce has made amazing music dealing with feminism, racial politics, and even though I didn't love the last album I was thrilled to see her explicitly celebrating queer minority subculture styles. What I've heard of this feels so uninteresting by comparison, even if I agree that there's an important conversation to be had about who is allowed to make and be successsful with this kind of music.

I’m actually sort of interested in hearing this just because… Beyoncé singing in a country styles sounds extremely badass to me… I have to get through some stacks first tho

also I'm going to keep rolling the "Charley Pride existed and was way more successful than people remember" boulder up the hill everytime this stuff comes up

Charley Frank Pride (March 18, 1934 – December 12, 2020) was an American singer, guitarist, and professional baseball player. His greatest musical success came in the early to mid-1970s, when he was the best-selling performer for RCA Records. During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), he had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to number one. He won the Entertainer of the Year award at the Country Music Association Awards in 1971 and was awarded a Grammy for "Best Country Vocal Performance, Male" in 1972.

I have to add of course that the UK relationship with country music is very different to the US culture around it

as in it ended in the 70s? chartwise at least

You clearly weren't in Scotland in the 80s & 90s

boxedjoy wasn't old enough either and he should be thankful that he didn't have to grow up with Thingummyjig stinking up Friday evenings in the 70s/80s

I guess the imperial era is ending but it was great while it lasted. speaking of glee I hope there isn't too much of it because there has been this undercurrent of cynicism for a while now (her entire career? temporarily muted to some extent around the the mid 10s)

I'm sorry for assuming england is britain again it's just how I was raised

She doesn't sing in a country style, though.

damn this is trash. wtf was she thinking w these covers

Lemonade is her best album tho

Daddy Issues would have easily been a top 3 song in here. Hell maybe the best one.

The Miley song sounds like it's underwritten? idk it feels like it's missing a piece. A near triumph.

so is this her Young Americans

I don't know. Not one damn song made me break down and cry.

^^ such a wonderful person but ya got problems

i think one of the reasons why "II hands II heaven" really hits for me is that there is not a lot of subtext to beyoncé's music these days, very little mystery. each of the last two albums has been accompanied by mission statements laying out their inspirations and contexts both personally and culturally; downstream of this, whatever subtext may exist is excavated by critics, academics, twitter posters etc. the reviews of these albums are stuffed w/ references to the work of other artists, as are the albums themselves of course. this isn't a criticism necessarily, i think her revealing more of her personal history in reference to renaissance only deepened my appreciation of the album, and her ability to connect cultural/historical/sociological dots thru her music is pretty much bar none in pop music currently. i think it's all less successful on this album but whatever

all to say that to me the gay subtext of "II hands" gives it a certain frisson that is not really present on much of either album. very little is happening offscreen on these records, so to speak, but here it's all gestures and nods to hidden layers of a relationship, something understood only between the two characters in the song. doreen st felix's review calls the song "wholesome" which... idk! i don't get that personally, yet i can see reading the lyrics and feeling a lot is being left unsaid before it gets to... unwholesomeness. but to me that's what makes it stand out. i think it's a pretty steamy song bcuz of what the tone & texture of their vocals and interplay between them is suggesting but the lyrics aren't quite spelling out.

I'm not seeing what the big deal is about the changed lyrics to Jolene, though I've seen plenty of people shitting themselves in anger them (granted it was on the hoffman forums)

I don't mind that she rewrote the words, but I do mind that she made them worse and not in an interesting way.

here's someone explaining Blackbird to the guy who wrote it: https://imgur.com/gallery/1Gp5xia

lmao

Sorry Macca but Ebony and Ivory is about a piano

Regardless of Jolene lyrics being switched for the worse, I think both the Blackbird and Jolene covers are super boring choices to cover and the execution doesn’t do anything interesting either. Blackbird is pretty much a karaoke version… with a fucking great singer, yes.

I think Blackbird's lovely. It is weird as the second track though, it needs to be tucked in the middle somewhere.

I don't care about the lyrics in Jolene but the singing feels boring and rigid - there's no swing in it. I'm not that familiar with 2010s and 20s Beyonce but does she usually sound so over-formal?

Sonically I prefer "Blackbird" to "Jolene" -- it's an all-time beautiful song; personally I love that she used the original master recording and sang it straight. It sounds lovely.

But agree it doesn't "fit" sonically as the second track, and that's because I interpret its position on the record as an egregiously obvious and literal statement of intent, not one that was decided because it made sense in the sequencing as a listening experience. Here's a song called "Blackbird" where the lyrics literally say "Blackbird singing in the dead of night" and we'll feature a bunch of under-appreciated black female country singers! The whole album plays to me as a jumbled mess that's connected by a few very literal skits and ideas.

so a concept album basically

« Ya Ya » is such a joyful storm. It’s like a distant cousin of « Get Me Bodied »